Laptop freezes unexpectedly while wifi card is in bay

[SufianHWG]

I have a Toshiba Satellite laptop with xp pro. Last week my laptop started to completely freeze on me at random times while I have my D-Link DWL 650+ wireless card hooked in. As soon as I remove the card from the port the laptop returns to normal. I've tried removing and reinstalling the drivers and I've cleaned out the cache/temp folders, defragged, and checked for spyware, checked for virus, all of which have not solved the problem. Unfortunately D-Link tech support hasn't responded and they're always busy when I call in so that route hasn't been successful. Anyone have any other ideas as to why all of a sudden this started to occur and what else I could try to solve it w/o having to do a fresh install. Keep in mind it started last week with no problems/issues before.

 

[jlr69t]

I have the same card with the same problem and D-link has terrible support. I fixed it by updating the drivers on my lap with the newest possible. Make sure you completely remove the old ones first...


DWL 650+ Drivers

 

[johnjkr1]

I had the same problem with my 650+, i got a new card and the problems went away

 

[jmagg]

I've had unresolvable issues with a D-Link wireless card.

 

[SufianHWG]

Thanks I'll try updating the drivers again. What I don't get is what's causing it to do that since it was working fine 2 weeks ago.

 

[johnjkr1]

Mine was working fine too...then it started locking up computers. I just RMA'd it to dlink, and am waiting on a new one.

 

[SufianHWG]

Originally posted by: johnjkr1
I just RMA'd it to dlink, and am waiting on a new one.

How long ago did you ship it?

 

[jlr69t]

Windows updates can cause problems with drivers from different manufactures. I stopped updating windows a long time ago and have never had any problems since.

 

[johnjkr1]

I shipped it two days ago, but I have a couple different pcmcia wireless cards. I used a $20 xterasys, and it works fine.

 

[SufianHWG]

I just spoke with DLink tech support. The techie told me to call Toshiba and get the bios updated saying my laptop may not be compatible with the card. How could there be an incompatibility all of a sudden after it was working for over a year...

 

[johnjkr1]

HAHAHAHA! They told me the SAME THING. But it just so happened I have two of those cards, one works fine, the other doesn't. Their tech support is full of crap and doesnt want to replace anything. If you want to RMA it, you have to speak to the second level of tech support. Basically, they want you to update the bios, format your os, all kinds of crap. Just tell them that you swapped it with another card, the second card worked fine (same model). Then say you took this card to another laptop and it locked that one up as well. You want to RMA the card because it is obviously defective.

 

[SufianHWG]

Yep so on Wednesday after spending around 45 minutes answering redundant questions with their tier 2 techs they issued me an RMA. What cracked me up the most in this who situation was when I spoke with Toshiba's techs (i wanted to make sure the laptops slots didn't go bad) and I mentioned DLink's bios idea, the tech told me "yea just make sure you goto our site and get the one compatible with XP."